Uganda up against 40 countries at Huawei global ICT competition finals

Uganda will be up against over 40 other countries from all over globe in the Huawei ICT competition finals set for the weekend.

The Huawei Global ICT competition aims to provide a platform for global ICT talents to showcase their ability, compete and communicate, encouraging ICT-related study and drive the growth of a robust ICT talent ecosystem.

Launched six years ago, the competition aims to promote the healthy development of

the ICT talent ecosystem and support the integration of industry and education.

In a statement released on Friday, the company said Uganda will be represented by nine students from two teams including Makerere and Muni University and these will battle with 150 other teams.

The opening ceremony will be held today, Friday and on Saturday, June, 18 will be the examination day with written and lab exams done for five hours.

The results shall come out the following week on Tuesday,  June, 21.

“Huawei Uganda approached over 15 universities and interested them in the 2021 ICT Competition. We registered 750 students and opened for them our free online learning platforms in the various courses of Network and cloud. The network track consists of Datacom, Security and Wireless Lan while Cloud track consists of Artificial intelligence, Big Data, Cloud Computing and Storage. These studied and were subjected to preliminary exams, national exams and regional exams where we attained the first and second position, “said Huawei Uganda Public Relations Director, Gao Jian.

Michelle Chemutai, a telecom engineer, at Makerere University and one of the regional level winners, recently expressed her gratitude to the exposure Huawei had accorded to them.

“The competition was very intimidating and at the same time exciting. The thought of competing with creme de la creme teams from different countries was frightening. Taking the first position made me really feel good about myself and increased my self-confidence,”she said.

“This competition was a new experience for me as an individual. it taught me team work and coordination and that hard work actually pays off. This competition literally forced us to give in our best. Also, I got a lot of exposure in the network field and learnt how to do the practical lab configurations that isn’t taught at the university.”

LEAP program

In April this year, Huawei announced the launch of its LEAP digital skills development programme aimed at helping advance the ICT skills of more than 100,000 people across the Sub-Saharan Africa region within three years, according to the Chinese tech conglomerate.

LEAP,  an acronym for Leadership, Employability, Advancement and Possibilities , is aimed at fostering strong digital leadership and a skilled ICT workforce, building a digital talent pool, and promoting digital literacy among citizens. It includes a wide range of activities spanning from ICT training and certification courses to government digital capacity building and ICT skills competitions.

Launching the program, Huawei Southern Africa President, Leo Chen stressed the importance of ICT skills transfer and talent development and underlined Huawei’s consistent emphasis on it.

“Digitisation is deeply rooted in people. Because we digitise for people and by people. When roots are deep, there is no need to fear the wind,” he said.

“Through the programme, we strive to cultivate more youth leaders in ICT, who can explore more possibilities for themselves, their families, community and ultimately their nations.”

According to the company, Huawei has, over the past two decades, helped advance the ICT skills of more than 80,000 people across the sub-Saharan Africa region.

In doing so, it says it has helped increase youth employability and bridge the gender gap in the ICT industry.